Bryan Ferry wins songwriting Icon award

10th Oct 2008 | 13:34

Lily Allen and Johnny Marr also honoured

Bryan Ferry has been presented with the prestigious Icon award at 2008's BMI Awards ceremony. The BMI is the American performing rights organisation that collects royalties for over 375,000 songwriters.

BMI president and CEO Del Bryant called Ferry "the epitome of Britishness and the ultimate combination of rock god and matinee idol".

"Rock god"? We're not too sure about that.

For his part, Ferry said: "I'm very honoured to be part of your tradition of music because there are so many artists you have represented who are great idols for me throughout my career.

Talking to Billboard magazine prior to taking the stage, Ferry explained that he was working on new songs. He said: "Sometimes you think well, everybody's heard enough of what you do, and you get despondent and think nobody wants to hear this - they want to hear some 23-year-olds' band or something. But I've got two songs that I think sound all right - I think they'll probably come out as solo things."

The last album Ferry released was Dylanesque, an album of Bob Dylan covers, in March 2007.

A BMI Award was also presented to fellow Brits Johnny Marr, for co-writing Modest Mouse's Dashboard (College Song Of The Year), and Lily Allen for Smile (BMI Pop Award).